Eating...

I have written before about eating, and I'm likely to do it again. Probably because I ~love~ eating/food/wine/etc.! What can I say...I'm a great cook, I really enjoy food, and my James and I actually enjoy it "together"...whether he's actually helping cook, or just rolling his eyes in rapture at some new recipe I've tried, it's all good.

WELL -- not ALL good...because I suppose we all know that the problem with LOVING food (and perhaps being American) is that somehow it "mysteriously" leads to our clothing being a size too small when we get it back out of the closet the next season!

I have mentioned before the book "French Women Don't Get Fat." It's actually a great book, because the recipes really "work," and the little bits in between are fun to read and, I think, very telling. I think that the author, Mireille Guiliano, is spot on with a lot of her observations.

I was looking for a breakfast recipe this morning in this book (as it's Sunday, I figured I would have a really super nice breakfast for my James, who is currently slaving away painting the walk-in closet he had put on the house for me). In the recipe search, I came across her chapter entitled "Bread and Chocolate," and parts of it reminded me of issues that I have seen with many friends and roommates in the past.

Guiliano talks about a problem that she has seen in American women's relationship with chocolate (hey, the whole chapter is ON bread and chocolate). To her, one of the biggest issues is that American women eat chocolate "en cachette" (in private). She goes on to talk about American women eating on the sly, having "guilty pleasures" -- and how this is very "un-French."

In France, if you get pleasure out of something, then it needs to have a place in your life -- one needs to "maximize the rewards of pleasure while minimizing the costs." She discusses how "guilt-ridden scarfing" is what she tends to see time and again with American women and chocolate, whereas in France, one takes a morsel of chocolate as almost a religious experience, very much savoring it on the tongue, and eating "on purpose." She discusses "sensory awareness" of food -- e.g., if you are "scarfing" down food, you are very VERY unlikely to be able to reap the rewards of all your 5 senses revelling in that taste...and you are going to feel cheated and "bad." Again, to quote her, "To know how to appreciate that burst of delicate flavors, that supreme smoothness of texture as it melts in your mouth and begins its way down your throat, is to me a great accomplishment of sensual eating. It's an experience that could not be more remote from eating a Snickers bar on the run."

All of this reminds me of a few friends of mine, who are constantly battling with their weight. (And, it reminds me of me, too.) The words that they would use when eating were words such as "nibble" -- a word I can't hear to this day without cringing. Because "nibbling" was really just a "cutesie" word for ~grazing~! Eating a little bit -- constantly. And often, not because the food was something delectable that the eater really wanted, but instead, just something "for the mouth to do."

I had this experience just the other day. We happened to have some "pita chips" in the house, after a party. I guess I just don't throw this stuff away because "some children might be starving in China" -- or whatever it was my Mom used to say Way Back When to get me to "clean my plate." I was cooking, hungry, and what did I do? "Nibbled" my way through that whole darned left-over bag of chips.

Yikes! The thing about this is, it's that same "closet eating phenomenon" that just isn't really in existence in France. And it's VERY un-Bond grrl. I mean, really. Can you see a Bond grrl scarfting down pita chips or "guiltily" eating a big handful of M&Ms? No.

Three things that I vowed and promptly forgot about at the beginning of this year had to do with Food. They were:
1. Not to eat in the car.
2. More particularly, to sit down and eat at the table, with a plate and everything, when I eat.
3. Not to eat and do anything else (e.g., watch TV, talk on the phone).
4. Put down the fork between bites. Chew every bite.

I have broken every single one of these since making that promise -- and I find that to be very silly. On the "I know better" scale, this stuff is high, high, high. In fact, if I were to be really honest, I find myself "nibbling" a lot. Ack! The N-word! (LAUGH!)

This stuff shouldn't be so hard -- I mean, the last thing that I want to suggest to myself or anyone else is to "keep an eating diary." Ugh -- what a chore. But I actually do think that by embodying those 4 "vows" above, a lot of the "casual nibble eating" will go by the wayside.

Often part of the "nibbling factor" or "eating what I shouldn't" revolves around not being a careful planner. If I go to a seminar that happens to occur at a meal, somehow I seem to think that "all bets are off" during that meal. (The "scarf at the buffet" situation.) I was at a seminar the other day, and sat down next to a gentleman who had the most beautiful plate of food -- looked like it came right out of Gourmet magazine. I looked at mine -- the usual "heaped high with everything jumbled" plate -- and actually said to him "that's really quite a beautiful plate of food you have there." He smiled, said that by really laying things out and thinking about what he was eating, he ate less. This was a really good looking guy, definitely a "cut above." And I learned something from that. Next time I'm at a buffet, I'm going to do my best to do the same -- to have an "artistically beautiful" plate of food, and not too much. And to eat SLOWLY (that's #4 above!) -- your stomach doesn't get the "signal" from your brain until WAY after that first bite hits that it's "full" -- so if you eat fast, you can wind up being overfull well before your brain even sends the "stop eating" message.

One way I have found to help out with this (when I'm eating at home) is to heat the plates up when I am cooking a hot dish. This keeps the food hot -- it doesn't go "lukewarm" so you wind up trying to "speed up eating" to "eat it while it's still hot." It's fairly easy -- if you have a microwave, you can put a wet paper towel on top of the plate (or between 2 plates) and put it in for a minute -- it heats the plate right up.

And speaking of -- it's time to go make that breakfast I was discussing, as my James just came in and told me he has 20 minutes more work to do -- then, breakfast time!

Solitaire